Background
Charles Peter Allen was born in 1861 in Prestwich, Lancashire to Peter Allen, the manager of the Manchester Guardian and part owner of the Manchester Evening News.
Charles Peter Allen was born in 1861 in Prestwich, Lancashire to Peter Allen, the manager of the Manchester Guardian and part owner of the Manchester Evening News.
Allen was educated at Rugby School, before matriculating to Oxford University.
His professional career was as a solicitor and newspaper journalist. He served his country during World War I, as a major in the Gloucestershire Regiment, and as a sportsman played international rugby for Wales. In 1865 the family moved to Beaumaris on the Isle of Angelsey in Wales, when they rented a property.
The family purchased a house in the town in 1873.
On leaving university he was articled to a firm of Manchester solicitors, and qualified as a barrister, though by 1887 he had changed careers and became a journalist for the Manchester Guardian. He was assigned as a foreign correspondenet and was sent to Russia, Bulgaria and Turkey.
While in Constantinople he met Evelina Barker and the two were married in the city in 1890, before returning to live in Beaumaris. While a Member of Parliament, Allen was made a Privy Councillor, and was appointed a deputy lieutenant of Gloucestershire in 1911.
He retained his position as Member of Parliament until 1918.
Posted to France as a captain, he became a Town Major, dealing with troop movements. At the end of his military career, Allen had reached the rank of major. In 1922 he ran again for the Parliamentary seat of Stroud, but was beaten.
He died at his London home in 1930.
Allen first came to note as a rugby player when he was selected for Oxford University Reconstruction Finance Corporation, though he had also represented Rugby School as a youth. Allen played in three Varsity Matches against Cambridge University, winning three sporting "Blues" from 1881 to 1883.
In 1884, Allen was selected to play for Wales in the opening match of the Home Nations Championship against his birth country, England. Under the captaincy of Charlie Newman, Wales lost by a goal to a goal and two tries, though it was Allen who scored the only Welsh try, the first points the Welsh team had ever scored against the English.
Allen was reselected for the next game of the tournament, in a home game to Scotland.
Wales lost the game, and Allen was replaced for the final game by Cardiff"s William Norton. International matches played
Wales
England 1884
Scotland 1884.
27th United Kingdom Parliament. 28th United Kingdom Parliament. 30th United Kingdom Parliament]
In 1900 he became Member of Parliament for Stroud, and he and his family moved to the area.
Allen had been a member of the Territorial Volunteers of the 2/5th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment prior to the outbreak of war, and at the age of 53 he became a full-time soldier.
